The conventional method for preventing water and dirt from getting into the interior of the door through a gap between a window pane fitted in the window opening and the outer skin is to place a “channel strip” over a top edge of the outer skin. The channel strip lies against the window pane and the outer skin as a flexible seal. For design reasons, it is desirable that the channel strip extend not only along the bottom edge of the window opening, but also over the entire length of the door, including of the pillars next to the window opening.
By way of example, DE 10 2005 022 152 A1 discloses a vehicle door with a channel strip applied over the top edge of the door outer skin. In order to create the top edge, a metal panel of the door outer skin is provided with a surrounding border element around an inner part of the door, so that a border strip of the outer skin is folded downwards on a side of the inner part facing towards the interior of the vehicle, and a bottom edge of the border strip which protrudes slightly from the inner part forms a shoulder on which the applied channel strip engages.
Such an engagement is practicable along the bottom edge of the window opening; however, the flanging operation that is needed to form the shoulder cannot be carried out beyond the ends of this bottom edge, because the space needed by the tools that are used for this purpose is occupied by pillars that delimit the window.